Days Out From Javea – Valencia Football Games

Football is much more than life and death in Spain. Football is pure passion to the vast majority of Spanish. In Jávea your vacation wont be blessed with international level football, though you do have the option of experiencing genuine lower league Spanish football by attending the home games of the local heroes Club Deportivo Jávea or upcoming rivals Mediterraneo Javea a league below.

If you fancy a real sense of Spanish football passion on a grander scale, a perfect sporty holiday treat is taking the evening off to attend one of the Valencia Cf home games.

Amunt Valencia!
…..so goes the cry of the fans at the huge Stadium in Central Valencia and basically is the local Valencia/Catalan word for “Up Valencia” or even “Valencia To the top”, such is my poor command of the Catalan dialect here, but nevertheless if you are here on the Costa Blanca, and fancy watching a great game of footy, only about an hour and half up the fast AP7 motorway you will find the vibrant city of Valencia.

Valencia football Club, or “F.C. Valencia” in the local lingo, is the 3rd best team in Spain, so they say, after Barcelona and Madrid, and has featured such famous international players as Antonio Puchades, Faas Wilkes, Kurt Jara, Mario Kempes and more recently players like Juan Mata, Gaizka Mendieta and David Villa.

So if you love watching a good football game then spend a day in the exiting city of Valencia and watch the team play, in fact if you time it right, they do sometimes play English premier league teams too.

Tickets For Valencia Home Games
Valencia plays their home games at La Mestella. A 55.000 capacity all seater stadium with a normally terrifying atmosphere for visiting teams. The average attendance is around 40-43.000 for league games with the big games versus Real Madrid, Barcelona etc obviously pulling the biggest crowds.

In reality the Valencias home games are never sold out and you can simply turn up and buy a ticket at the door. Do not fall for online ticket sellers claiming they have the very last tickets for this or that game at triple the normal price. Check the Valencia Cf website if you want to make sure. You might still want to buy your tickets in advance to be able to comfortably choose your seats and sections in the stadium, again just go to Ticketmaster or Valencia Cfs website.

Tickets for Valencia home games vary in price from game to game according to the opposition. Further, as is customary different parts of stadium have different prices. The lowest category seats start at around 50euros, but you may want to buy slightly better ones to get closer to the action on the pitch.

On top of these games there will be plenty (hopefully) of cup games and European matches, but theyre yet to be announced. Take note that the dates announced & kick off times wont be finally confirmed till as late as 10days before the actual games.

How To Find Valencias Mestella Stadium ?
Once you arrive in Valencia, from the main train station in the centre of the city, called Estacio del norte (north station, basically) you can flag a taxi (always white cars with taxi plates), and ask to go to the Mestalla stadium, which will cost you around 20 euros.

Remember the double “l” is Spain is a “Y” sound , so you have to say “Mestaya”.

Also if you find the main city hall, called the “Ayuntimiento” or “Ajuntament”, there are buses that go directly outside the stadium, but check with the bus company before leaving.

And if you plan to make use of Valencia excellent underground (Tube trains), then you take the line 5 (green on the map) from Xativa metro, next to the main train station.

Driving in central Valencia, is NOT for the faint hearted and you would be advised to park up and get on the metro, as above.

Spanish Holidays with a spice of football
There’s nothing worse than being married to a football fan if you are not a fan of the “beautiful game” yourself! Standing on the terraces in freezing cold rain back in the UK, supporting your partner, who supports his or her favourite team is of course always a labour of love.

So when you are on holiday on the Costa Blanca, soaking up the sun, sipping cool Mojito by the pool and reading that novel you brought, which has been sat on the shelf back in the UK, the LAST thing you want to do is to hear about football!

However, if you traveling to Spain with some equally football mad mates, and just couldn’t possible go without watching a game for a couple of weeks, don’t bother about missing home, and checking the internet to try and see the latest scores, because Premier league level action is actually right here on your doorstep in Spain!

Well, let’s knock out Sweden, Norway etc…..except Klanen at Vålerenga and maybe some noisy RBK fans. I have been a Man Utd fan for 35 years and been at many derbies and, Utd v Liverpool and Leeds games and hundreds of games and 100+ grounds (Currently I have been to 87 of next season’s stadia. Sure there was plenty of noise, sure there was plenty of chanting etc but sadly much of it was pure hatred rather than passion/morbo here in Spain. Also I think that West Brom 0 Wigan 0 is not got going to go high in the passion stakes whereas Rayo and Granada can make a noise. Málaga’s relatively small “Rose Garden” is a cauldron for 90 minutes even against Zaragoza. We were beaten 4-0 at home by Barcelona 3 seasons ago – it LASHED DOWN for 2 hours plus and the Bokerones, Málaka Hinchas and Frente Norte did not stop screaming and shouting. There was no way the game should have been played. The ref took the players off after 12 minutes in a hope that the rains may subside and/or the groundsmen could fork the pitch….. but to no avail. There is a great YT of Messi aquaplaning about 10 yards, scrambling up, beating about 4 men in a superb dribble only for the ball to literally STOP in a puddle (=pond!)

I remember a similar midweek game against Valencia when Villa had much the same problem. 11oclock at night, soaked to the skin the Málaka Hinchas just did not stop screaming.

Who can forget the incredible support the Athletic fans give the Basque club? Impressive.

I just don’t think that would happen in England. The other differentiator is passion compared with violence. Sure, we have had isolated incidents, sadly, and Sevilla, Atletí, Rayo and a few others have a collection of undesirables but I would happily go to any stadium as an away supporter without too much thought. (Exclude Sevilla for a Málaga fan, of course!) As a Man Utd fan – most games are potential flashpoints and I’d seriously question whether I’d take a friend’s daughter to Millwall. As a Gillingham fan, Fulham, Palace, Brighton, Millwall, Swansea, Exeter and Brentford are all grounds where I would prefer to go as a neutral. (Hereford, Grimsby and Torquay could make life “fun” too!)

Germany, welcome to the cheap seats. Which ensures packed stadiums. Great approach to football over there. Fans owning the club and all that. I have to say when I went to the Bernabeu for a CL game against Dynamo Kiev, there were only 20,000 in the stadium. Shite effort from Real all round who got lucky on the pitch too.

Nice overview of one of the very best teams in Spain. Yes, the tickets seem expensive but the atmosphere and the passion of the fans make it a great experience. I have watched football in many countries but nowhere have I seen the passion of Spain.

I dunno, in England I can only compare to West Ham, Ipswich and Colchester – the only one of those 3 that didnt have a bit of a subdued atmosphere was Colchester (which had more of a village team passion vibe) … in Ipswich they have stewards enforcing a “dont stand up from your seat” rule and the speakers desperately trying to get people to sing along to “Singing the blues”….

Oh, for a return to standing areas in English stadiums. Sitting, as the Germans have little hesitation in pointing out, is for arses. Regarding the Boleyn Ground, I recall West Ham vs Chelsea games as being very noisy affairs.

…and then the silly singing seats, seemingly put in place to have some monkeys entertain the VIP corporates sipping martini. Sigh. I dont doubt Chelsea visiting still draws some nice spectacles – think it was Aston Villa when I was there which didnt seem to sparkle much interest.

Maybe I’m a bit out of touch. Been here eight years now. The last time we went to Stamford Bridge was a couple of seasons ago. Very expensive seats. Near Abramovich. Our preferred Matthew Harding seats were sold out. Think the boys want me to buy earlier next time. We were next to a load of tourists. Well, we were tourists ourselves, I suppose.

Thats one part of the problem for sure – the fashionable VIP fans have driven the ticket prices up so far that the traditional football fans cant afford it … the real passion is probably found in the pubs surrounding Stamford Bridge. What is it like in Germany by the way?

Never been to a German match – been to a few grounds. From videos etc it LOOKS like there is plenty of passion. Hertha always had a noisy kop and I think Hamburg and Bayern M are lively.

It started in Sweden as a very middle class sport and at Örgryte it was expected that the spectators should support both teams on the pitch. Sadly Malmö Djurgården and AIK especially have some very nasty ultras who got more than a handful of games abandoned last season – TWO at Malmö. A collection of racist thugs does not make for “passion”.

Matthew will tell you that the huge change in Millwall has been from racist thugs to retarded thugs. Millwall had the worst racists in the country in the late 60s and 70s …. when half your “beloved” team is non-Aryan you have a choice – join the civilised world or support the fascists. The terraces were a breeding ground for the National Front in the 70s and marches were regularly planned to pass/meet at grounds. All hell broke out at Bradford where the Valley Parade ground is in the centre of a huge immigrant community. After the dubious pleasure of a police horse trampling all over me, I never even got to the game! The nearest I ever got to seeing a guy killed was at Charlton where the fascists were trying to sell their rags. Some very brave/stupid skinheads were outnumbered 200/300 to 1 and one fascist was kicked senseless for what seemed like 5 minutes before the police could get to him. He was being tossed around like a rag-doll.

This was right next to a cue to what was the biggest kop in England. Hundreds of women and children were terrified of what was going on.

As you can imagine I had little sympathy – never saw them at The Valley again. That is NOT what I call passion!

There then followed what I can only describe as the most bizarre thing I think I have ever seen at a ground. Old guy in front of me in the queue – perhaps 60/65 – walked over to the forgotten newspapers – mainly ripped and damaged – and promptly urinated all over them in broad daylight. Police came charging over and he started screaming that he’d spent 6 years fighting the nazis including time in a POW camp and he had not helped the UK win just to let them start up in his own country. Huge applause, clapping etc. An older police officer, let him off with a caution and the police were then clapped etc. All totally bizarre!